www.thinkofthechildren.co.uk. Like a lot of the best satire, it’s in questionable taste, and there are people that won’t think it’s funny. Again, like the best satire, it raises a serious point. However, the mention of specific people and places probably does cross the line.
From Stuii (again!) – and thanks, Stuii, for blogrolling me!
A year ago today I was in meeting with colleagues who’d come over from other offices. I heard someone say just after lunchtime that “America had been attacked”, but no more details. This would have been just after 2pm UK time, a few minutes after the first plane hit.
I tried accessing the BBC News web site, but the site was inaccessible. This wasn’t uncommon; the Internet gateway had limited bandwidth and was frequently down. We continued through the day’s meetings with an increased sense of foreboding that something terrible had happened, only we didn’t know what. The BBC site was still inaccessible all afternoon; I tried hitting ‘reload’ whenever there was a break in the meeting, but to no avail. I didn’t occur to me to try any smaller sites or message boards.
The meeting finally broke up about 5.30pm, and before leaving for home I tried accessing Dreamlyrics, the web-based RPG community. There was a thread labelled Terrorist Attack. For a while I couldn’t believe what I was reading; the awful reality of what happened hadn’t really sunk in.
Even from a continent away it felt numbing; I find it impossible to imagine the impact this must have on Americans. Europe has suffered from occasional terrorist outrages, and had seen cities attacked and leveled during World War II – The continental US had seen nothing of the kind; up till now America had never had to fight a war on home territory.
There were people that said America had it coming; it was a punishment for their support for corrupt regimes in the middle-east. But those on the European left who said such things are as just as wrong as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson’s idiotic assertion that it was God’s punishment for American’s tolerance of homosexuality. Such people are no more representative of the great mass of European people as Falwell and Robertson are of America.
Nothing justifies killing three thousand innocent people just to make a political point.
BBC NEWS | England | Fare cop for Nibbles the hamster
I beat Patrick Crozier to this one! A boy is charged a 10p fare for his hamster! Is this the new First Group policy, I wonder?
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Ministers attack US war chaos
Tony Blair has discovered the awful truth. British voters don’t like George W Bush. Worse that than, they don’t like Blair seeming to act as Dubya’s poodle. If Britain joins in Bush’s ill-considered war on Iraq, and it all goes pear-shaped, then Blair is doomed.
I have to quote this Guardian article yesterday, listing anti-war quotes from a number of people.
Richard Dawkins, the writer, biologist and professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford, was also firmly against any US assault: “Obnoxious as Saddam Hussein undoubtedly is, it is not obvious that he is more of a danger to the world than ‘President’ Bush and his reckless handlers.
“It would be a tragedy if Tony Blair, a good man who has so much to offer this country, were to be brought down through playing poodle to this unelected and deeply stupid little oil spiv,” he said.
I have to say I’m not a fan of Dawkins. As a Christian I find his anti-religious bigotry repulsive; he’s unable to distinguish true religious faith from blind, unthinking fundamentalism. But on the subject of GWB, I think he well sums up the way a great many Britons think. I guess many people wouldn’t have expressed their opinion in quite those terms. Tact and diplomacy aren’t exactly Dawkins’ strengths.
I’ve tried to avoid mentioning Israel/Palestine and Iraq in this blog; every other blog in the blogverse seems to be full of postings on this subject, mostly trying to compete with each other to see who can be the most rightwing and pro-war. Bruce Baugh has some thought-provoking comments (to which I have added some comments of my own)
I see the reactionary fundamentalists Reform are getting steamed up again about Rowan Williams joining the Gorsedd of Bards, accusing him quite falsely of dabbling in Paganism.
I shall have to look up the Dungeons and Dragons Player’s Handbook to see if Clerics and Druids can multiclass 
It’s Sunday, so I’ll talk about religion again.
In his blog, Nathan Lott makes some comparisons between Rowan Willliams and Pope John Paul II.
Thanks to Lynn GAzis-SAx for this article from The Tablet, which offers some pointers from for the future direction of Anclicanism. One quote caught my eye concerning Anglican-Methodist union “At present nothing really separates Anglicans and Methodists in England except inertia plus Anglican snobbery and Methodist sectarianism”. Harsh, perhaps, but there’s more than a grain of truth in that statement. Of course, it doesn’t apply to all Anglicans or all Methodists.
However, in this Guardian article, Theo Hobbs is not so sure about him, and complains that Britain’s Protestant heritage is being lost. Personally I blame Ian Paisley and his ilk for making Protestantism a dirty word.
I ought to say something about Rowan Williams, the next Archbishop of Canterbury. He’s already been rubbished in one or two conservative blogs as an old-school leftie. He seems to me to be an order of magnitude better than the lacklustre George Carey, and perhaps some honest criticism of global capitalism should be heard and listened to. Theologically he seems pretty orthodox, and I find the criticism from one or two reactionary evangelical groups (such as Reform) to an encouraging sign. Previously the church had made too many compromises with these reactionaries over ordination of women, which has left women priests as second-class citizens within the church. With Rowan Williams at the helm, they need to sort our this mess. Of course, you could argue that it’s none of my business, since I’m a Methodist, not an Anglican
He’s already got in to trouble with Walt Disney (mess with The Mouse at your peril). Disney hits back at his criticism of their over-aggressive marketing to children. I’m not sure of his position on RPGs…
While on the subject of good and evil (sort of), does anyone else think Nicholas van Hoogstraten resembles an RPG or comic-book villain? The vicious henchmen? The massive egotism? The over-the-top palace he was building? We mustn’t forget, though, this is a real man who has inflicted a lot real misery on a lot of people.
On a completely different subject, it’s a pity I missed the Steve Hackett/Evelyn Glennie concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday; this review from the Guardian sounds interesting. Hope this work gets recorded.
Sod the football! Cricket’s where it’s at, with England’s thrilling last-over victory against Sri Lanka. This is what the five-day game is all about; ebb and flow shifting over the five days. Just when it looked like the Sri Lankans were safe, Ashley Giles takes two wickets in two balls; then England have to score 50 runs in six overs. And they got them!